Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

My SIL that is a great cook is visiting, so I am pulling out all the stops.

And she can bake and to me that is magic and I can't do it. My mother was not a great cook, but she was an amazing baker.

 

I do lots of braises inside the oven, but no baking. I'd like to learn how to do that, though.

Making tacos as a quick snack before heading out to the Mac.

 

Last night I made a creamy sauce (heavy cream, butter, olive oil) with bacon, leeks, and thyme served over fettuccine. With a side of Lipitor. LOL.

Tonight my wife and I are going to a cooking class to learn how to make ravioli. From the description it will be very old school like my grandmother (not Italian, but cooked for a Southside Italian back in the 1930's. She knew her stuff) made. She used her dining room table to roll it out by hand. I would watch and then was tasked with cleaning up with damp rags and her Hoover vac using lots of the attachments to get all of the flour up and flour was everywhere. The reward was dinner and it was awesome.

 

I love French Cote du Rhône but I have been putting a lot of L'Adventure from Paso Robles in my wine cellar. The area just west of Paso Robles makes a lot of stellar wines of that style. I also like Villa Creek a lot. I find that I get more bang for my buck with them,

 

Napa is overpriced, but there are great wines from other places in California. Oregon also makes some world class wines.

Added in edit: When I was younger I was a big fan of big red wines like a good Bordeaux (I really liked the St Estephe 2nd growths that you used to be able to afford), Napa cabs, Italian barolos, some of the old school California Zinfandels like Seghesio, etc. Now I am liking pinot noir based wines more as I find them better suited to food pairings for the kinds of food I like to eat. Sometimes I even go softer with some of the lovely soft reds from Italy.

Now if I was eating an elk steak it would be a different thing.

 

Keeping it simple tonight: sauteed scallions and corn mixed with tomatoes, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, sea salt, and black pepper. Next I will be grilling chicken legs. Too bad I am all out of Pat's Ho Made, but I will survive and the chicken will be eaten.

 

Cleanup was easy for us as we walked away at the end of the evening.

The Alfredo sauce they put on my ravioli was very soupy and not good.

I will be making my own sometime soon. If I can get a good deal on Florida lobster tail I will be making lobster ravioli.

 

My oldest son is visiting this weekend with his girlfriend.

I am thinking either grouper or rib-eyes for dinner tomorrow. Can't go wrong with that choice.

 

I am going with a victory martini instead.

Tonight it is grouper with a picata sauce, scalloped potatoes with fennel, and a cracked farro and broccoli salad. Also garlic shrimp as an appetizer.

The scalloped potatoes are in the oven as they take nearly two hours to cook and are best warm and not piping hot. The shrimp is all peeled. The farro salad is from a recipe that my wife asked me to cook and I have never made it before. It has a gazillion steps and ingredients and lots of thinly sliced things so the mandoline is getting a workout today.

 

Grilling some chicken tonight to eat with leftovers from Friday (corn scramble) and yesterday (scalloped potatoes with fennel).

That is yummy!

Grilling brats instead. My son complained that I was grilling too much chicken. I wanted to tell him to buy the meat and cook it.

 

I've been watching and cooking all day. I hope that I have my appetite back by dinner time.

First I made some dirty rice to keep on hand for my youngest boy that eats a lot and is very skinny. On the other hand I just think about food and gain weight.

Next I have prepped a poblano potato gratin to stick in the oven later. It is a lot of prep work: charring the peppers and skinning/deseeding, peeling and slicing the potatoes, sauteing onions, making the rajas (pepper strips and the sauteed onions, bringing a pot of heavy cream and sliced potatoes to a boil, arranging the ingredients in an rectangular baking pan.

Got a load of dishes going.

Next I will prep the salad (mixed baby greens and radicchio with a blue cheese and honey dressing). I will get do everything up to dressing the salad.

Lastly I will get everything ready to pan sear duck breasts and then make a cherry/port/thyme reduction to pour over it. I will have everything measured out and ready to go as well as pounding the duck breasts to the proper thickness and also cutting a crosshatch pattern into the skin and fat to help with getting the fat away from the breast meat while it is being seared.

My wife has also started a grainy farrow based dish that she will complete when she gets home. She forgot to get pistachios.

Friends of ours are bringing over some kind of dessert.